Democratic worries bubble up over Cornel West's Green Party run as Biden campaign takes hands-off approach

Cornel West's candidacy on the Green Party line confuses some of his longtime political allies and friends - while also alarming top Democrats and Black leaders as a potential ticking time bomb for President Joe Biden in next year's election.

The political philosopher and proud agitator is tapping into his semi-celebrity to attack Biden from the left - where the president has never been fully embraced - and describing his administrations as a mere "postponement of fascism." And as concerns over Black voter enthusiasm bubble among Democratic operatives, West is also making a deliberately race-based argument, accusing the Democratic establishment of treating the electorate like "a plantation where you got ownership status in terms of which way you vote."

Most top Democrats remain skeptical West will raise enough money to mount an extensive operation - he jumped from the little-known People's Party to the Greens after a rocky rollout - and are following the Biden campaign's lead of deliberately not engaging with him.

But his decision to run on a ballot line which Democrats blame for spoiling both the 2000 and 2016 elections, when Green presidential nominees drew enough votes to help give Republicans key states in the Electoral College, has made his candidacy a running source of angst and, increasingly, a topic of private conversations among multiple Democratic leaders nationally and in battleground states

And while many political insiders have been buzzing about the group No Labels trying to get on the ballot in many states with a presidential candidate, the Greens are already there in 16 - and in 2016, got up to 44, including the most competitive states.

"This is going to sneak up on people," said David Axelrod, a former Barack Obama adviser who also serves as a CNN political commentator. "I don't know why alarm bells aren't going off now, and they should be at a steady drumbeat from now until the election."

There are no sirens blaring, but top Democrats in swing states have taken notice.